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Cybersecurity Liability of the management Technology- & IT-Law

Liability of Companies in Phishing and CEO Fraud Incidents

Legal Standards and Case Law on CEO-Fraud: Phishing and CEO fraud have become prominent tools in the arsenal of organized cybercrime. Increasingly, companies are not just targets but gateways through which substantial sums are misappropriated—often under the guise of legitimate internal instructions. The legal fallout is predictable yet complex: Who bears the financial loss when a manipulated employee executes a fraudulent payment? Can the company hold its bank liable, or does the responsibility fall on internal governance?

This article explores the legal framework governing the liability of phishing and CEO fraud victims, particularly from a civil law perspective. The analysis is grounded in recent German case law, interpreted within the context of the European PSD2 regime and modern organizational security obligations.

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Technology- & IT-Law

Domain Law in Germany

In the digital economy, domain names are more than just internet addresses—they are virtual real estate, trademarks in disguise, and often a company’s first point of contact with the outside world. As such, their legal status in Germany is complex, balancing principles of property law, trademark protection, competition law, and contractual governance by private registrars like DENIC.

For international businesses, navigating Germany’s domain law means understanding a landscape where ownership is shaped by civil law reasoning, yet constrained by fairness, good faith, and public policy considerations. This post offers a detailed overview of how domain law operates in Germany—and where the legal traps lie.

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Technology- & IT-Law

Art Law in Germany

Between Creativity and Codification – A Comprehensive Overview … what is art? A timeless question that continues to inspire debate among philosophers, curators, and artists alike. But as the art market becomes increasingly professionalized and digitalized, a new question emerges with growing urgency: What is art in a legal sense—and how is it protected?

Welcome to the world of art law: an interdisciplinary, evolving, and increasingly complex legal field that extends far beyond traditional copyright law. It touches the lives of artists, collectors, museums, gallery owners, NFT marketplaces, auction houses—and increasingly, defense attorneys.

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Technology- & IT-Law

Trademark Law in Germany

Understanding Trademark Law in Germany: Foundations, Modernization, and Practical Insights – in today’s global and highly digitized economy, trademarks are more than just badges of origin. They are strategic communication tools, carriers of reputation, and essential legal instruments to distinguish goods and services in a competitive marketplace. For businesses and legal practitioners outside Germany seeking to understand the country’s approach to trademark law, a closer look reveals a harmonized but uniquely detailed system shaped by European integration, national doctrine, and recent digital challenges.

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Criminal Defense

Money Laundering Law in Germany

Understanding the Unique Challenges of Money Laundering Law in Germany: Germany, with its highly developed economy and pivotal role in global finance, is particularly vulnerable to the infiltration of illicit capital. Despite robust legal reforms in recent years, the fight against money laundering in Germany remains marked by significant legal complexity, broad criminal liability, and unresolved systemic tensions between domestic enforcement needs and cross-border legal constraints.

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Criminal Defense Technology- & IT-Law

Cryptocurrencies as Taxable Assets in germany

FG Nürnberg Confirms Taxability Despite Virtual Execution: In its judgment of January 22, 2025 (Case No. 3 K 760/22), the Fiscal Court (Finanzgericht, FG) of Nuremberg issued a landmark ruling on the taxation of gains from cryptocurrency transactions. The court not only confirmed the general tax liability of such private sales under § 23(1) sentence 1 no. 2 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG), but also addressed in detail a range of arguments raised by the taxpayer—concerning the lack of economic substance of tokens, the purely virtual nature of transactions, and alleged enforcement deficiencies by tax authorities.

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Criminal Defense Cybercrime

Digital Evidence in Germany: Legal Foundations, Collection, and Admissibility in Court

As our world becomes increasingly digitized, digital evidence has emerged as a key component in legal proceedings, especially in Germany. Whether it’s chat logs, data stored on smartphones, or forensic copies of hard drives, courts must determine not only the truth contained in digital artifacts but also whether they were obtained and handled in a legally sound manner. This article offers a structured overview of how digital evidence is treated in German criminal and civil procedures, highlighting key legal challenges and principles.

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Criminal Defense Cybercrime

The German Judiciary’s Encounter with Kryptomessengers like Encrochat, SkyECC & ANOM

Encrypted Evidence and Constitutional Boundaries: Over the past several years, German criminal courts have been confronted with an influx of evidence originating from encrypted communications services—so-called “Kryptomessenger” platforms—such as EncroChat, SkyECC, and, more recently, Anom. These platforms, marketed as secure communication tools, often served the criminal underworld as havens for logistical coordination, trafficking, and financial transactions.

Once considered virtually impenetrable, they were ultimately infiltrated by international law enforcement operations. This development has sparked a cascade of legal proceedings in Germany, bringing to the surface one of the most delicate tensions in modern criminal procedure: the admissibility of foreign-sourced, technologically complex digital evidence in a system constrained by strict constitutional norms.

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Cybercrime

UN Cybercrime Convention 2024: The Global Struggle Over Cybercrime Treaties in a Fragmented Digital Order

A New Era of Cybercrime Governance: In the early days of the internet, international criminal law lag far behind the technological realities of transnational cybercrime. The adoption of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime in 2001 marked a watershed moment. For the first time, states committed to a common framework for criminalizing core forms of cybercrime, harmonizing procedural tools, and facilitating international cooperation. But this Eurocentric model, while groundbreaking, has become a geopolitical fault line. In 2024, after years of behind-the-scenes negotiation, the United Nations adopted its own global cybercrime treaty—promising inclusivity and updated standards, but raising deep concerns about surveillance, human rights, and the rise of authoritarian cyber-sovereignty.

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Cybercrime Cybersecurity Liability of the management

Corporate Espionage in the Age of Digital Vulnerability: Strategic and Legal Imperatives for Global Leadership

The Resurgence of Espionage as a Business Risk: Economic espionage has returned—not as a relic of Cold War intrigue, but as a dominant, digitally enabled force in the contemporary global economy. What once occurred through shadows and surreptitious briefcases now unfolds across networks, supply chains, cloud infrastructures, and human behavior. With over 80% of companies in Germany alone reporting incidents of data theft, sabotage, or espionage in the past year, what we are witnessing is not a security crisis but a structural shift in the nature of competition.

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